Finally! Real Reading - at least for me.

This week I am discussing three books I have read that aren't exactly my topic, but my topic lead me to these books. It was nice to change from adult nonfiction/ teaching materials to some "real" reading occasionally. It helped me get through the six weeks, because I am telling you, those teaching books can get pretty dry.

The View for Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg (upper elementary)

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            I love Konigsburg. The first book I read by her was Silent to the Bone. Dang. I was hooked. Then I read The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World. I seriously wondered how I could have missed her all my life. I have a friend who retired from teaching middle school, and she was always trying to get me to read A View from Saturday, but I never picked it up. Fate finally interfered last week. I read a lesson plan in The Book Whisperer, remembered how much my friend liked the book, and then found the book at a used book sale for 25 cents. Some times you simply have to answer to the gods, and this was one of those times. I really liked the book - not as much as Bone or Mysterious Edge, but it was worth reading!

Drowned City by Don Brown (middle school)

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            Great graphic novel! I have Brown's graphic novel The Great American Dust Bowl, and I really respect the powerful merging of the text and the images. Drowned City did not disappoint me. I visited New Orleans for the first time in April of 2005. I fell in love with the city that gave us Louie Armstrong and shrimp Po' Boys. Then in August of that same year I stared at the television as I watched a city I couldn't wait to get back to wash into horror and desperation. My heart broke for the people who had to live through Hurricane Katrina. Most of my students only know the stories of Katrina from news clips or anniversary stories. Drowned City provides an excellent opportunity to bring them closer to the tragedy that the people of New Orleans faced and are still, ten years later, trying to recover from.

Little Bird's Bad Words by Jacob Grant (primary or pre-school)

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            Little Bird has learned a new word - a word that does not impress the adults in his life. The images of this children's picture book are clean and entertaining. The funny way the author lets us know Little Bird hassaid an inappropriate word without actually saying the word made me laugh.Little Bird must learn not to use words that others find offensive - but as any elementary school teacher can tell you - the lesson must be repeated as Worm picks up the word and starts to use it.

Next week: book club! I will share a selection from The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller.

Poetry Week!

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Okay I admit I was a little unsure of where I would find a poem about learning. I should not have been; there are many, many poems about learning! I did narrow my choices down quickly when I found a book on teaching poetry in conjunction with teaching social justice. I didn't go looking at libraries -- I ordered it right away. Rhythm and Resistance: Teaching Poetry for Social Justice, edited by Linda Christensen and Dyan Watson was the perfect fit for my current topic and a class I am planning for next year.

There are many poems I could have pulled from the book, but on page 112 is a small section on poems for two voices. I love poems for two voices. I love having the sound of one voice telling a story and another telling a different point of view, woven into the first voice.

The following lines from the poem "I am a Woman" poem tells the story of two women living in Chile living in 1973, after the overthrow of the government. Unfortunately, I cannot find the author of the poem. It wasn't given in the book, and although I did find the poem listed several times on the Internet, the author is listed as "anonymous." This poem would be shelved in the genre of historical fiction. If we could trace the author, and find that these events actually happened to two specific people, then we could move it to political history in nonfiction.

I find the repeating sounds of the poem, the rhythm, to be useful in seeing the reflection of the feelings of the two women. I also liked how the mood switched with every line, the first line always reflects loss, and the second line always reflects hope. The line, "whose heart was constantly strangled by hunger" was a power piece of personification. It is difficult to be a kind and loving father when a man feels he cannot feed his children. In American history we saw this during the Great Depression; hunger doesn't just starve the body, it starves the soul.

I am a Woman

I am a woman. 
I am a woman. 

I am a woman born of a woman whose man owned a factory. 

I am a woman born of a woman whose man labored in a factory. 

I am a woman whose man wore silk suits, who constantly watched his weight. 

I am a woman whose man wore tattered clothing, whose heart was constantly strangled by hunger. 

I am a woman who watched two babies grow into beautiful children. 

I am a woman who watched two babies die because there was no milk. 

I am a woman who watched twins grow into popular college students with summers abroad. 

I am a woman who watched three children grow, but with bellies stretched from no food. 

But then there was a man; 

But then there was a man; 

And he talked about the peasants getting richer by my family getting poorer. 

And he told me of days that would be better, and he made the days better. 

We had to eat rice. 

We had rice. 

We had to eat beans! 

We had beans. 

My children were no longer given summer visas to Europe. 

My children no longer cried themselves to sleep. 

And I felt like a peasant. 

And I felt like a woman.

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If you found the poem interesting, you might find the idea of "white privilege" worth reading about. The concept of white privilege is based on the idea that so often those with advantages are simply unaware of the disadvantages other race. It isn't always a case of not caring, it is a case of not recognizing. This is a link to a completely unscientific and simple quiz to get you thinking about the concept of white privilege.

Next week: Last week on topic! I will be finishing The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller.

Surfing the Web for new Ways to Learn

All about websites! This week we read websites regarding our topics. We all started with an article from Wikipedia (love Wikipedia!) and then went in search of two additional websites to help us deepen our understanding of our topics. Here is what I discovered while surfing the web this week.

Image source: Wikipedia

"Learning Styles" from Wikipedia

As expected, full of very educated opinions on learning styles. Also boring. This web page did not help me much, so to be honest, I moved on.

"The Differentiator"

Image source: http://moodle.nptcgroup.ac.uk

I thought "The Differentiator" was the coolest web page I had seen in a long time. This web page allows students to design projects based on his or her own strengths. I really thought this would be a great tool for my students to use. I played with it several ways and generated many project statements. I just knew my students would appreciate the opportunity to design their own projects. Wrong. Several of them simply decided to write an essay because it was easier. I wanted my students to get excited about the work they were doing, not just have a "get it done and over with" attitude. I still might find a way to use it, but what I am doing now doesn't seem to be helping my students learn. Useful for forcing me to recognize the various learning styles of my students, but not really useful for my students.

 

"Facing History and Ourselves: Teaching Strategies"

Image source: https://www.facinghistory.org/

Mission Statement: Facing History and Ourselves is an international educational and professional development organization whose mission is to engage students of diverse backgrounds in an examination of racism, prejudice, and antisemitism in order to promote the development of a more humane and informed citizenry.

By studying the historical development of the Holocaust and other examples of genocide, students make the essential connection between history and the moral choices they confront in their own lives.

I first heard of Facing History last spring when I was finishing a project with the Library of Congress. FHAO had just launched a set of lesson plans for To Kill a Mockingbird. Since I teach this novel twice a year, I thought I should look over the lessons. I was amazed. These were lessons that didn't ask students to crank out the usual essays or the standard multiple choice questions, these were lessons that asked students to read a scene in the book, then look at the history of racism in our world, then actually talk about it. I teach a unit on the Civil Rights Movement every year. A friend asked me last winter if I thought I was changing the thinking of my mostly-white students. I stated that, no, I didn't think I was, but I did hope that when they are confronted with racism, they recognize it. I want them to acknowledge it. Facing History's perspective on Mockingbird gives me the opportunity to do just that.  Most useful website I have use in, well, maybe ever.

Teacher Tech

Image source: Teacher Tech

"Teacher Tech" is actually a blog, not a website. It is written by Alice Keeler, author of 50 Things You Can Do With Google Classroom. Google Classroom is now the portal my school is using to push out online assignments, I figured I should learn it. I read the book literally in about an hour. There was one tip that I felt I had completely missed in my own explorations of GC, but at the end of the book, Keeler's blog was mentioned. I have found the blog far more useful than the book. I don't read it every week, but I do check it every so often, skip some posts, share some posts, and really study a few. So I guess the most valuable part of the book was the blog! Useful for giving me ideas and new tips for making the most of the Google Classroom (as limited as it is).

My plan for next week: The Book Whisperer (finally, no more putting it off) and poetry! I am planning to read Rhythm and Resistence: Teaching Poetry for Social Justice.